Chinatown knife attack suspect skated on THIRTY-TWO charges in notorious vandalism case after prosecution snafu
Further details are emerging in the case of Jianfeng Huang – accused of attempted murder after an unprovoked broad daylight stabbing in San Francisco’s Chinatown last week that left a man critically injured.
“Defendant acted without mercy and with the specific intent to kill [the] victim,” wrote assistant district attorney Kimberly Toney Williams in a motion to detain.
“The victim is in a medically induced coma after the first of many surgeries to repair his internal organs, including but not limited to the evisceration of his intestines.”
“Medical personnel noted that the defendant’s blade narrowly missed nicking or severing the victim’s aorta,” she added.
Huang, 37, was charged in 2022 with more than 30 counts of vandalism after a brazen window-smashing spree that targeted cars parked in and around the Chinatown district. But that prosecution hit the rocks amid defense claims that missteps by then district attorney Chesa Boudin barred the case from going forward.
Social media users on Instagram and Reddit posted video of car after car with both front and rear windshields smashed throughout May 2022.
Prosecutors said that Huang damaged a total of 32 vehicles on May 18, 22 and 26 2022. Not all of the vehicles visibly damaged in social media users’ videos appeared in the criminal complaint, however, suggesting that the 32 crimes alleged did not account for the totality of the offenses committed.
According to court documents, a preliminary hearing began later that month, only to be abandoned after prosecutors asked to dismiss the case so they could refile a narrower complaint better supported by witnesses and other evidence.
After the refiling, the case was dismissed for a second time on September 6 2022 because there was no courtroom available to hear a preliminary hearing within the allowed 60 day time limit. Defense attorneys pointed out this followed prosecutors’ multiple requests to delay the hearing because they could not wrangle their witnesses into court – including a critical police officer who was on vacation.
The district attorney’s office filed the case for a third time on November 16 2022 – provoking public defenders to protest that the ‘two-dismissal’ rule prevented them from doing so.
“All the subsequent delay in holding the preliminary hearing, including the delay past the sixtieth day, was therefore directly attributable to the prosecution’s repeated failures to subpoena necessary witnesses and properly prepare for the hearing,” wrote public defender Oliver Kroll in a motion.
“This lack of preparation – caused in part by frequent reassignments between prosecutors – was not a one-off occurrence, but a constant theme throughout these proceedings,” he added.
The case was subsequently terminated on December 6 2022.
Huang was previously convicted of arson in San Mateo county in 2020.
Huang will appear for arraignment today at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice.
The case continues.
This story has been updated.
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